Cooley + Law Review/Moot Court/etc. or MSU with Nothing?

vansondon

I think it's a shame that there is this unfortunate and elitist perception fueling the dilemmas of this discussion, but I acknowledge the unfortunate reality. As I see it, it really shouldn't matter which law school you go to (of any tier, whether ABA accredited or not), as long as the school offers a solid legal education and there is some national uniformity in standards. Unfortunately, employers do place a high premium on this. I feel like it should be illegal to discriminate against someone because of the school s/he attended. It is all so arbitrary and ridiculous.

It's not about the left side of the graph, it's about the right and the middle. MSU doesn't get people into prestigious firms at any great rate, but they do get them through school and into jobs at a much greater rate than Cooley.

I believe if OP can hold it down at Cooley, they can probably hold it down at MSU.

Has your friend though about staying at Cooley, doing LR and Moot Court and then pursuing an LLM at a different school to wait out the economy for awhile longer, get time in a different market to network and give future employers a different school to look at on the resume and hopefully combat the Cooley stigma? (not saying that this is the right way to go, but it is a possibility that has not been discussed ITT)

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vansondon

I think it's a shame that there is this unfortunate and elitist perception fueling the dilemmas of this discussion, but I acknowledge the unfortunate reality. As I see it, it really shouldn't matter which law school you go to (of any tier, whether ABA accredited or not), as long as the school offers a solid legal education and there is some national uniformity in standards. Unfortunately, employers do place a high premium on this. I feel like it should be illegal to discriminate against someone because of the school s/he attended. It is all so arbitrary and ridiculous.

I think it's a shame that there is this unfortunate and elitist perception fueling the dilemmas of this discussion, but I acknowledge the unfortunate reality. As I see it, it really shouldn't matter which law school you go to (of any tier, whether ABA accredited or not), as long as the school offers a solid legal education and there is some national uniformity in standards. Unfortunately, employers do place a high premium on this. I feel like it should be illegal to discriminate against someone because of the school s/he attended. It is all so arbitrary and ridiculous.

LOL. And the world would be a better place if lampposts were made of gumdrops and gravy tasted good on ice cream. But the reality is that, on the whole, better schools attract better students, and better students prior to legal education are more likely to be better lawyers. Yes, there are exceptions.

Is that elitist? Of course it is- employers want elite recruits. It's elitist that I never got my chance to play in the NFL. In fact, most NFL players come out of a handful of top schools, despite the fact that football players in lower divisions get the same football education. NFL franchises don't recruit players out of Valdosta State or Brown, and no one decries it as shameful and elitist.

I think it's a shame that there is this unfortunate and elitist perception fueling the dilemmas of this discussion, but I acknowledge the unfortunate reality. As I see it, it really shouldn't matter which law school you go to (of any tier, whether ABA accredited or not), as long as the school offers a solid legal education and there is some national uniformity in standards. Unfortunately, employers do place a high premium on this. I feel like it should be illegal to discriminate against someone because of the school s/he attended. It is all so arbitrary and ridiculous.

LOL. And the world would be a better place if lampposts were made of gumdrops and gravy tasted good on ice cream. But the reality is that, on the whole, better schools attract better students, and better students prior to legal education are more likely to be better lawyers. Yes, there are exceptions.

Is that elitist? Of course it is- employers want elite recruits. It's elitist that I never got my chance to play in the NFL. In fact, most NFL players come out of a handful of top schools, despite the fact that football players in lower divisions get the same football education. NFL franchises don't recruit players out of Valdosta State or Brown, and no one decries it as shameful and elitist.

Of course, lampposts, gumdrops, gravy, and football have nothing to do with law review, moot court, transferring, or anything else discussed in this topic. Are you just trying to be a smart ass or do you actually have a point to make, here? Aside from your off-topic sarcasm, I don't really see much difference between my comment and the logic that I think lies beneath yours.

The point is that you're living in a fantasy world if you think that, if all legal educations are the same, all the lawyers coming out will be the same. It doesn't compute, just like if the football players in D-3 and at USC all get the same amount of practice time, they'll be the same. The students going into better schools are better. They're better before law school and better after law school. That's why firms- and NFL teams- look at top schools. If you passed some asinine anti-discrimination law that said firms had to hire as many people from Cooley as they do from Yale, you'd have a lot of really bad lawyers. Reality is elitist. You can rage against that all you want, but it's true.